The state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1883-1893, 1887-03-31

ating to home use the admitted EXCELLENCE
OF Greek and Roman masters. A nation
was born In day, in the space of sin
gle generation, discordant and unstable
langu se became the effective medium o
versa'I genius, divine philosophy an(
prOtean fancy The flower of knightli
ness appeared side by side with the grace
of classic learning and the sober precept.
of jurists and theologians. The "yet un
formed Occident' was reclaimed from it.
savage lethargy, and while Spenser wa,
meditating the Fairy Queen, in which bril-
liant emprise and noble aspirat ons were
to be presented in alegorical vision, hi.
| friend and patron, Sir Walter Raleigh, wal
planting the first English colonies or
| Roanoke Island, and Drake was circum
navigating the globe. The spirit of Puri
tanism Was not extinct, its power is visi-
BILE in the allegory which portrays so much
of the higher life of the age, but with the
! consciousness of advancing greatness in
the passionate glow of enthusiasm kindled
by 1.-The Armada'S prize" there was a
catholicity and unity of spirit to which no
other period in our literature presents a
perfect parallel. The decline of the drama
after the accession of the House of Stuart
Is an impressive illustration OF this truth.
The heroic temper Of the Elizabethan day
disappeared with the incoming of the new
dynasty. Shakespeare retired from the
stage in 1913; Raleigh, the foremost man
Of all this world in the sphere of brilliant
endeavor, the first fully to conceive the
grand idea of English sup, emacy upon
this continent, was offered up in 1913 to
appease the vengeance Of that very power
which had been humiliated thirty years
before by the English Salamis-in 1921
came the downfall of Bacon in whose
strangely blended character was exhibit ed
SO much of greatness with SO much of lit
teness, the worship of science and the
worship of mammon.
The earlier years Of James reign in6i-
Gated that the latent energy Of Puritan
ism would soon ripen into an aggressive if
not an lnvincible power. 1t was evident
to rejecting minds that the antagonistic
forces of Puritanism and Anglicanism
were being shaped to some decisive issue.
The nation lost the Catholic spirit that has
quickened and broadened its mental life
during the preceding era; poetry existe
in great measure in that school of Wrists
who seem to have descended as a rich sur
vival of its dramatic wealth; the acrimo-
NOUS temper that had marked the contrO-
versies of the Reformation appeared in
this new outburst of reforming zeal.
Ben. johnson passed away in 1887, the
year that saw the advent of Lycidas, and
five years before the struggles which had
distinguished the reign of Charles |, al
most since its commencement, eliminated
in open war A recent work character
lied 10y pleasing and popular treatment
of its theme-I refer to Edmund Gosses
From Shakespeare to Fope'-is inclined
to attribute the process of transition from
he Itprafnra of E1lzahaf hav n,
times to the classical type which reached
lis climax in the auspiciOus age of Pope
and Addison, to reactionary sentiment,
to feeling Of safety with the ''hysterical
riot" that distinguished much of the liter
ature of the Elizabethan day. A more
philosophic and extended study of the
literary, political and scientific develop
ment of the seventeenth century will tend
to show that this theory if not inaccurate
is at least an imperfect explanation. In
the age of Elizabeth the germs aud semi
nal principles of all forms and modes Of
literary activity may be discovered by the
eye of the critical student Between the
accession of the House of Stuart and the
n-1603-166O may be traced
the originals and prototypes of the noblest
forms of political liberty, both in England
and in America. The aims that inspired
the keformers of the Long Parliament
were essentially the same as those that
animated the less heroic men of 1858
The influence of Puritanism upon the po-
lltical as well as literary development of
Engl during the seventeenth century,
has rarely been traced with that minute
regard to details of which it is eminently
deserving. The popular conception of
Puritanism as mere protest against the
tendency Of Anglicanism to relapse into
Ro1nanism, and of the Puritans as mere
dvsecrators of shrines and destroyers of
temples must be succeeded by a more
rational apprehension of their influence
and their functions, before the transition
of our literature from its creative to its
critical stage can be properly compre-
hended or its history accurately written.
Puritanism, properly understood, en-
braces vastly more than the vicisstudes
of High Commission, Star Chamber, and
Privy Council, the AnglO-Catholic reac-
ton of Lam, or the Thorough" policy of
Strafford. 1t was the generic expression
of the modern spirit in political and con-
stitutiOnal evolution, in ecclesiastical de-
velopment, in the expansion of physical
science 1t was the organized and aggres-
sive actions of those forces that dominate
modern life and modern development in
their material as we'll as in their intel
leCludl pildScS, uONc\or muCu IL Iu1y nave
been distinguished by those alterations
and extravagancies that accompany every
innovation upon established order and
ancient precedent. Let us select the year
1912 and note the convergen1e of events
around this critical point. In 1912
Galdilco dies, Newton is born, Richelieu,
the apostle of absolutiSm in France, is
called to his account, and the civil war
begins by the setting up of the royal stan
dard at Nottingham. In these complex
phenomena we see the manifestation of
the modern spirit in the development of
physical science by scholars and thinkers
during the distractions of civil war in the
supreme political issues involved, in the
gradual breaking down of our ponderous
syntax, and the dissolution of our lover
flowing" stanza. Under these multiform
aspects there reigns unity of spirit that
is unmistakable. The entire political de-
velopment of the seventeenth century
from the assembling of the Long Parlia-
ment to the Revolution of 1858 is critical
or regulative in character, the Revolution
itself being criticism of the constitution,
and endeavor to fix in precise forms and
definite propositions its scope and intent.
He who can see in Puritanism nothing but
grGtesqueness and eccentricity, appre-
hends but little of Its real nature and his
toric power. Nearly all the grand forces